I set the Virtual machine Memory to 1600MB, this is optional.
Wait for Backtrack 5 rc1 to start up.
Type root and press Enter to login.
Type toor and press Enter, to enter the password.
You may need sighted help to do some of the following instructions. Once you get speakup working, the command line will, of course be accessible:

Fix audio bug in Backtrack 5

The following has been copied from an answer given on the Backtrack Forum at :
To get to Backtrack GUI, type startx after you login.
Press Alt+F1, press S to go to System, then P, for Preferences then S twice, for Startup Applications. Press Enter.
Tab twice to the Add button and press Enter.
Set the name to, PulseAudio D.
Set the command as:
/usr/bin/pulseaudio
Set the Comment to, PulseAudio D.
Save these settings by going to Options and press Enter on the, Remember Currently Running Application.
Reboot the virtual machine.

VMware Player Sound needs to be enabled

Make sure that VMWare Sound is on when you start Backtrack in VMWare.
If you are in the Guest, make sure you can access the VMWare menu. Press Control+Alt.
Press Alt+V, then D, then S, then C for Connect.
Sound will now be enabled for VMWare. Let me know how I can set this, so I don't have to redo this every time I restart the Backtrack VM. I'm not a VMWare guru.
How to start Text console for speakup
You can't use speakup with the BackTrack 5 rc1 gnome-terminal. You need to open a text console. The usual key command is Control+Alt+F1, but in VMWare Control+Alt are captured.
So, with the guest having the keyboard focus, press Control+Alt+Space, release Space, then hit the F1 key. A text console will open.

Speakup setup

# modprobe speakup_soft start=1
# apt-get install speakup-tools
# apt-get install espeakup
# espeakup --default-voice=en-us
Even though you will get an error:
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
speakup should still come up talking.
Speakup settings to start with
The speakup-key plus 1 decreases the volume. On my laptop the speakup-key was CapsLock. On a desktop speakup-key will be Insert.
The speakup-key plus 2 increases the volume. Volume 9 for speakup is the loudest, so you may have to increase the volume overall instead of just speakup.
The speakup-key plus 6 increases the voice rate.
The speakup-key plus 5 decreases the voice rate, but it's slow already.
Speakup automatic startup
How to get speakup working at startup, copied from StormDragon blog at http://stormdragon.us/?p=44
# vi /etc/modules
This will open the vim text editor. Press the escape key to make sure you are in command mode. Use down arrow to move to the bottom of the file. Once there, press shift A to get in to append mode. Type the following line exactly as it is here:
speakup_soft start=1
Press the escape key to get back into command mode. Then type the following to save and exit vim:
Press Escape and type
:wq
Once you press enter, the file will be saved.

Next, add espeakup to /etc/init.d/rc.local, so you won’t need to launch espeakup every time your system is restarted. Place the line at the very end of the file.
# vi /etc/init.d/rc.local
Press the escape key to make sure you are in command mode. Use down arrow to move to the bottom of the file. Once there, press shift A to get in to append mode. Type the following line exactly as it is here:
espeakup --default-voice=en-us
Press Escape and type
:wq
Once you press enter, the file will be saved.

Known Pulseaudio speakup Issue

Please Note:
Speakup and espeakup connector have been known to crash in Ubuntu 10.04 when pulseaudio is run in user mode.
The Vinux distribtution has a solution and long discussion about this at:http://www.mailinglist-archive.com/V...io+crash+issue
Unfortunately user mode is the default, and sensible mode to run Pulseaudio in.
Hopefully this Pulseaudio versus speakup/espeakup issue has been, or will be sorted in l